There’s no doubt the American League East holds mediocrity this season, especially with only one team over the .500 mark coming into play today and the American League East seeing one of it’s more larger gaps between first and second place in Major League Baseball. But there’s no denying the Yankees have finally clicked together as a ball club, and they’re making it their mission to take the A.L. East, after missing the postseason for two straight years.

Let’s look at the current American League East standings coming into play this afternoon:

The Yankees committed a rare feat and gained an entire game on the entire East division; the Toronto Blue Jays lost to the Oakland Athletics, the Baltimore Orioles lost to the Yankees, the Tampa Bay Rays lost to the Philadelphia Phillies and the Boston Red Sox lost to the Houston Astros (and are currently riding a seven game losing streak).

The Yankees have their faults like the other teams in the East do, but a Twitter follower mentioned to me this morning their faults weren’t catastrophic enough to derail the ball club. With the Yankees gaining ground in the East, is it time to think about ‘pulling away from the pack’ or are we getting ahead of ourselves going into the dog days of August?

“There’s still a lot of games to be played and you still play teams in your division, but as I said, these are important series,” Joe Girardi said after last night’s 4-3 win over the Orioles. “It gives you an opportunity to put some distance between you and the other clubs in your division and you don’t have to rely on other people. But there’s still a ton games to be played.”

Early or not, it’s still a good feeling to be up 5.5 games and not having to worry about another team trying to overtake their lead. If the Yankees continue to keep pace with their current play, the East could be all but theirs and they could punch themselves a ticket to the postseason for the first time in two years.

4 thoughts on “Yankees continue to pull away in A.L. East division race”

i think when you win 8 of 10 and the rest of the division plays .500 ball or less, those thoughts of pulling away come to mind…and with the teams jelling the thoughts might be to not mess with the chemistry by making significant and less significant additions via trade…when things are going well, you don't want to mess with success but I feel that Cashman should not sit on his laurels too much…what a good playoff teams does is to often make smart acquisitions at this time of year to improve the team…if those additions are made by Toronto or Baltimore or Tampa, things might get very tight again…Yankees should get ahead of the curve…they don't need to add big names but looking back at the championship years, there were smart mid-season acquisitions that proved vital to the teams success…

I am only going to say that every time we get excited they lapse into a slump and drop in the standings. If they're still in first place after they play a few central and west teams, maybe they're for real.

that's the fear Robert…we've got a couple things going for us…last night it was Tex and Arod, today Headley and Ellsbury…it seems like the team has done a good job finding ways to win and the bullpen has been the anchor…i even think we might find Drew chipping in a little more but maybe that's just wishful thinking…as i thought about the team further today, i realize how important chemistry has been for the 2015 Yankees…we don't have an all-star team but these guys are playing that way…this is a group of overachievers…if the Yankees make it into the playoffs, Girardi should get a look at manager of the year although he's unlikely to be chosen over Cinderella teams but I would say we have the Cinderella team for the playoffs…screw Houston…